Several bills have been introduced, though none with leadership support.
The effort to ban congressional stock trading has gained steam in recent months.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have introduced a range of bills tackling the issue, as congressional leadership has supported the idea in principle.
So far, no bill has been brought to the floor, and supporters have expressed skepticism that such a measure can pass Congress.
Here’s a look at where the efforts stand and how they might influence the outcome of this debate.
Why Now?
The interest in members’ stock trading is a recent phenomenon. Members of Congress are required to file financial disclosures that detail their assets, including their stock portfolios. With the internet, online activists, traders, and others have been able to track in near-real-time the trades made by members.
The issue that arises is the public’s perception of a conflict of interest. As persons vested by the Constitution with legislative power, members have great ability to influence markets and stock prices with the way they vote. Their position also gives them access to privileged information, be it government data or political knowledge, that may also influence markets. The concern is that members may use this information for their self-interest, to make money through trading that is unfair at best, or akin to “insider trading” at worst.
“[The American people] do not send us here to enrich ourselves while we are voting on the issues they send us here to fix and address, and then have members trading stocks on [those] very issues. They’re supposed to be voting on an objective basis for the American people,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), one of the leading proponents of a ban among Republicans, said at a press conference on Sept. 3.
Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said at that same press conference: “People should feel that their elected representatives put them, and their interest, first. We don’t need to sell the American people on this. … I want to thank Congressman Roy for [efforts] to move this forward.”
Much attention has been paid to the portfolios of individual members, whose handsome returns on stocks in comparison to their annual congressional salary, $174,000, lead to incredulity and perceptions of corruption. The portfolio of former House Speaker and retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), as currently tracked by Quiver Quantitative, has a trading volume of $164.39 million and has grown by 850 percent since 2014. Other members, in both the Senate and House, have been tracked, and their returns have been widely criticized.
Backbench members have prioritized the perceived issue with urgency. On Dec. 2, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) filed a measure known as a “discharge petition” this week in the U.S. House of Representatives. The measure allows the whole House, against the wishes of its leadership, to bring a bill or resolution to the floor for consideration and, on a subsequent vote, pass it. It requires 218 signatures to proceed.
“Both Republican [House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)] and [Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.)] have acknowledged that insider trading in Congress is a serious problem and must be stopped, and have signaled support to stop the corrupt process of insider trading via individual stock trades, but political games have already started to play out behind the scenes so I couldn’t wait any longer,” Luna wrote of her decision. Since her announcement, many members of Congress and candidates for those offices have announced they’ll sign her petition.
By Arjun Singh
